#the neverending game of gay chicken

[faunandfloraas]

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[nysocboy]

Gemstone Episode 1.9 Review: Jesse is racist, Judy is a rapist, and Kelvin is the Devil

Episode 1.8 ended with all of the Gemstone siblings and their partners broken up, plus Gideon cast out from the family.  It's going to take a lot of work to make things right again.  

Chicken bone voodoo:  After a flashback to Aimee-Leigh's death (and a bee that will re-appear later in the episode),we cut to Eli finding about about the blackmail, Jesse's assault of Rev. Seasons, and Judy's embezzlement. Kelvin stood by and let them do things that he knew was wrong, so he's just as guilty. Eli angrily fires them all. 

Later, Amber tells Jesse that if he wants to reconcile, he'll have to go to Haiti, where Gideon is doing missionary work, and bring him back. Their conversation is surprisingly racist, referencing chicken bone voodoo, AIDS, and cannibalism. (Left: Port au Prince)

Judy's frst boyfriend: Judy meets with BJ "at a neutral location," the Outback Steakhouse, to give back the stuff he left. She admits that she hasn't really "gobbled 1,000 cocks"; it was a lie to impress him.  She continues with a monologue about her only previous boyfriend, actually her economics professor in college: she misinterpreted his casual conversation,  sexually assaulted him in his office, then kidnapped his son. BJ is mostly shocked that she never had vaginal sex before, so he "took her virginity."  Do you think Keefe took Kelvin's virginity on the night of the Club Sinister rescue?

Jesus never dated much: Sibling movie night at Kelvin's house ((notice the K and the arcade game behind their couch).  They're watching The Neverending Story., at the scene where Artax  horse/companion of the hero Atreyu, is literally consumed by his sadness, sinking into the Swamp of Sadness to his death.  Atreyu yells: "Fight against the sadness. You have to try. You have to care. You're my friend.  I love you."  Suddenly Kelvin bursts into tears

In the movie, the Childlike Empress is sick, thus allowing the Darkness (hopelessmess, despair) to slowly devour the Kingdom of Fantasia.  Young hero Atreyu is looking for a cure to save Fantasia, but he is unable to save his horse/friend Artax.  Maybe Kelvin is thinking of how he couldn't save Keefe from the Nothing.

But for now, Kelvin is lost in his own Sadness: "My emotions are all over the place. I feel like I'm coming unhinged." The siblings ignore him, so he repeats: I'm in emotional turmoil, dealing with some very painful questions about myself."  

"For real?"  Jesse immediately becomes serious.  Remember, he thinks that Kelvin is gay, but in denial.  Is he ready to come out?

Nope.  "I've always felt like, maybe, I'm Him."  He's always felt like he is Jesus? Say what?  Dude, that's full-blown psychosis.

Actually, many cult leaders claim to be Jesus.  Wikipedia lists 40 in the 20th and 21st centuries alone, including Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara, David Koresh.  It doesn't usually end well.

Kevin's reasons: we both care about people; people like us, and want to follow us. Plus: "He didn't date much, didn't have the urge or the need to.  That's me for days."

Fans sometimes use this line to argue that Kelvin is asexual/aromantic, not experiencing desire for anyone, but in a heteronormative society, surely he means "urge or need to date women."  

Jesse, aware of another reason for Kelvin's lack of interest in women, assure him that he's not Jesus, but "that doesn't mean you're not a decent man."  Notice that he uses the term "man," signifying that Kelvin is grown-up, an adult, regardless of his sexual identity.

But Kelvin doesn't buy it.  Another voice is telling him, "If you can't be him, maybe you can be me...Satan."  We know from the Satanic Sweep and the Club Sinister rescue that, in Kelvin's eyes, Satan is all about sex, or sex is all about Satan.  The only way he can explain his homoerotic desire, and maybe his homoerotic intimacy, is by fashioning himself "the Dark Lord of the family."  After all of this, how did fans continue to argue that Kelvin was straight?

He's very tired -- he hasn't been sleeping well lately. Because he usually shares his bed with Keefe?  And he misses Mama, who used to tell him that everything's gonna be ok.  She's gone, so Jesse and Judy step up: "Everything's gonna be ok.  You'll get it figured out."  It's not hard to figure out, Dude.  Lots of people are gay.

The illustrated version, with nude photos, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

[animentality]

People who’re saying that people shouldn’t be expecting gay ships to be canon in Free! and they’re in fact terrible Fans who just aren’t appreciating the show for what it is are missing the point.

The people who say they don’t want to watch the show or just don’t care if the ships are only ever continuously teased at aren’t saying the show’s gotten bad, just stale. 

It’s not that Free! has changed, its fanbase has just gotten older. or at least, some of us have. maybe even a little wiser. 

I feel like these people are the ones who’ve matured and moved passed queerbaiting and “fujoshi teasing.”

I think these are the people who are no longer star struck by hot guys and abs and homoeroticism and have started to be people who want real lgbt representation.

It’s been a while since Free! was last out. We’ve had Steven Universe’s gay wedding, Shiro confirmed to be LGBT, that canon Malec ship on Shadowhunters, oh and Steven Universe again with a nonbinary bisexual woman calling the shots. We’ve even had Deadpool canonically being pansexual in a major film and being represented as pansexual. Lando Calrissian too was confirmed as pansexual, in Solo, although I don’t feel that he was really be presented as much as he should’ve been in Solo. We’ve had celebrities coming out, more movies dedicated to gay and lesbian and bisexual stories. Moonlight, Call Me By Your Name, Love Simon. Real recognition of the community. Netflix is really getting good at involving gay characters and diversity in its shows too. 

I think that....

I don’t know about other people who were fed up with Free!, but I personally know more about myself now.

In 2013, I was in high school, sophomore year, and I still thought of myself as straight and cisgender.

I don’t anymore. 

It’s been five years.

I don’t get excited or even interested every time these guys just tease one another and play a game of gay chicken. 

I just don’t have to settle for scraps like that anymore. It’s not a game for me, it’s not just a matter of entertainment. It’s something I invest in. And I’m not invested in things that no longer reflect what I care about. 

It’s nothing against the show or its fans, you just outgrow it.

The last time I said something like this, I got a few angry and mildly irritated people saying, “So what, you hate it? It’s not FOR gay people, it’s for straight women!”

I got some idiot messaging me and then instantly blocking me, saying that it’s misogynistic to try to “give” a show for straight women, who don’t “get any shows” to gay people and that teasing relationships is what makes the show relevant. 

First off, that’s embarrassing. 

Just flat out embarrassing, if that’s all a show has got going for it.

Second, misogynistic, what the fuck- 

Third, well, whatever, that’s fine. It’s not supposed to be something revolutionary. 

But damn.

In this year of 2018, where the world feels like it’s tumbling down a neverending slope and nothing feels like it used to and we have politicians gone insane, a madman in the white house, neo-nazis feeling like they’re safe in public, women of color standing up for themselves, celebrating different forms of beauty, the lgbt community widening its reach and growing in influence, i mean. 

I’m sorry. 

Watch whatever makes you happy, but things that make ME happy, and maybe some other people, is when you see progress, you see something that means a lot to someone, to yourself, to a huge community of people who long for a sense of belonging. 

It’s dumb, it’s just fiction, but hey, if fiction is a representation of our minds, if it shapes and is shaped by how we see ourselves, as human beings and individuals, then it has the power to give us something real. 

I just want more. I’m sorry, that’s just it. 

I can’t watch most TV shows or read most books because I just can’t stand the beautiful skinny white people and the beautiful heterosexual relationships that have been told a million times over and over. 

I have a tendency to get very involved in fictional universes, and I want nothing to do with one I used to love, because I’m not the person I used to be. 

And liking Free! doesn’t make you a bad person or not an LGBT ally or any of that dumb tumblr justice mob rally crying nonsense. 

You just clearly want something different than other people.

And that’s fine.

Just 

Maybe not take it so damn personally.